An Orange County sheriff’s deputy says she was raped by another deputy two years ago and later denied a promotion and requests for overtime as punishment for reporting the assault, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday.

The plaintiff, who is in her mid-20s and remains employed at the sheriff’s department, said the assault occurred in Nov. 2016 in a Houston hotel after she was given water her attorney suggested may have been laced with a “powerful ‘knock-out’ drug.”

“She was awaken by a feeling of sharp physical pain and discovered in horror that (a male Orange County sheriff’s deputy) was sexually assaulting her,” the lawsuit stated. “Plaintiff immediately pulled away and ran to the bathroom where she hid behind a locked door.”

During a subsequent sheriff’s criminal probe into the incident, the 34-year-old male deputy confessed in a covertly taped phone call – and later in a video interview with investigators – that he “‘groped’ plaintiff’s private parts underneath her clothing while she slept” and that “plaintiff didn’t say or do anything to suggest she consented to sexual contact with him,” according to the lawsuit. The complaint doesn’t say if he confessed to the alleged rape.

The complaint also states that sheriff’s department put the accused deputy on leave after the incident, where he has remained, still employed at the department.

Sheriff’s officials didn’t respond to questions about the employment status of the accused deputy, including if he is on leave and if that leave is paid.

County spokeswoman Jen Nentwig wouldn’t address the lawsuit’s allegations, saying “the county is unable to comment on this matter due to the pending litigation.”

The Orange County Register is withholding the names of both deputies involved in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit also alleges that the sheriff’s department fostered a workplace culture in which sexual-harassment of female deputies is common and ignored, and that reports of abuse are viewed as acts of disloyalty.

The plaintiff said that even before the alleged assault she had witnessed and been the victim of harassment, including sexually-graphic comments and jokes directed at her. She said earlier in 2016, a male deputy repeatedly and aggressively made unwelcome sexual propositions and physical advances toward her. When she told her superiors and investigators about his behavior, they were “dismissive of her complaints and… subtly discouraged her from pursuing her complaints further,” the lawsuit stated.

She said after reporting the alleged assault to the department’s special victims unit, the department didn’t treat the case confidentially. Soon, she alleged, she was the subject of “gossip and false rumors” within the department, saying she had willingly had sex with her colleague and then falsely accused him “because she had ‘buyer’s remorse.’” When she applied to work for the crisis-negotiator team, she said she was denied the job and told the team “doesn’t have any internal affairs problems.”

“The (sheriff’s department) initiated and fostered a wide-spread campaign of character assassination against plaintiff, casting her as a liar, cheater, home-wrecker and snitch,” the lawsuit stated. “As a result, plaintiff’s co-workers have openly shunned her since she reported the crime – making it clear that they do not want her working in their units.”

Sheriff’s Commander Jeff Hallock, who oversees the department’s professional standards division, said he hadn’t had a chance to read the lawsuit and couldn’t immediately respond to allegations of sexual harassment or discrimination. He also said he couldn’t comment on the specifics of pending litigation.

The lawsuit states the alleged sexual assault and subsequent investigation occurred like this:

The plaintiff said that prior to the incident she was friendly with the alleged attacker, and considered him a mentor. He had taken her on patrol ride-alongs, and she had become friendly with his wife and kids. And when he invited her to join him on a fugitive extradition to Texas, which he said required an overnight stay in Houston, she agreed to go because she thought it would be a valuable learning experience.

In Houston, after the deputies delivered the prisoner, they checked into separate rooms at a hotel, ate dinner together, and went out drinking at more than one bar. At 2:30 a.m. on Nov. 23, 2016, the duo returned to the hotel, and the male deputy entered his colleague’s room behind her. He offered to fetch her a glass of water, and within minutes of drinking it, she “passed out cold.”

Later that night, she awoke to find her colleague sleeping next to her with his hand on her breast – a circumstance she initially thought was an accidental result of him passing out. She moved away and fell back asleep. But when she awoke again at 9:45 a.m., she alleges that he was raping her, according to the lawsuit.

After running to the bathroom, she called another deputy in Orange County and told him what happened. Despite the alleged assault, she said she flew back to California with her colleague later that day. She said that she feared reporting the incident could harm her job or her marriage. But a week after the alleged assault, she reported the episode to the Orange County Sheriff’s Special Victims Unit, which interviewed the deputy who she accused of attacking her.

The lawsuit states that no criminal charges have been filed so far against the alleged attacker. Houston police officials referred questions about the incident to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, which declined to comment.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department recently has come under fire for how it handled another report that a deputy raped a woman while on duty.

In August, the county paid $2.25 million to an Orange County woman who alleged a sheriff’s deputy raped her in Dana Point only two months after another woman accused the same deputy of sexual assault. The jury held the county liable because the sheriff’s department allowed former deputy Nicholas Lee Caropino to stay on patrol, and remain in contact with the public, even as he was under criminal investigation for the first sexual assault allegation.

Hallock, the sheriff’s commander, said that in any instance where criminal allegations are made against a county deputy, the investigation is led by police in the jurisdiction where the incident occurred – though the sheriff’s department can assist. He said the department also can open a concurrent internal affairs investigation or decide to delay that in-house inquiry to await the results of any criminal probe, depending on the facts of the case.

Thursday’s lawsuit was filed in Riverside County Superior Court because the accused deputy lives in Lake Elsinore.

Jordan Graham covers congressional politics and county government for the Orange County Register. He began his career reporting freelance civic and watchdog journalism in his hometown of Chicago before moving westward in 2013. He has previously covered Irvine, the San Fernando Valley and Costa Mesa for the Register. He is a graduate of University of Illinois and Northwestern University. Please email or call him with news tips.

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